


Is This the Peace You Dreamt of?

by ResplendentRi



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gang Rape, Hurt/Comfort, Kink Meme, M/M, Multi, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Psychological Torture, Psychological Trauma, Rape, Rape Aftermath, Rape Recovery, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-04-29
Updated: 2012-04-29
Packaged: 2017-11-04 12:49:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/394032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ResplendentRi/pseuds/ResplendentRi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[Written for the kink meme] "Instead of being executed, the Sufferer manages to escape and ends up starting an all out war with the highbloods. Eventually, he manages to win. So the highbloods are now out of power and mostly enslaved, the Grand Highblood has either been executed or soon will be, and they've managed to capture the Highblood's descendant, Gamzee." The Signless gives his consent for Gamzee to be entered into a "re-education program," unaware that the program is not so innocent as its name would imply.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: The Rites of Mercy

The war was long and hard and filled with casualties on both sides. Five sweeps came and went before the Empire began to crumble, and it was another sweep before they brought Her Imperial Condescension to her knees and slit her throat before the stunned population of Alternia.

The Ψiioniic asked for the privilege, even though he was weak and trembling and still leaked yellow blood from underneath the headset that would probably never safely come off. He kissed her deeply, lovingly, in the quiet privacy just before the execution, and wiped away her frightened tears and whispered to her as he held the blade to her throat that if she had ever loved her people then she wouldn’t let them see her cry.

The Condesce died gracefully with her eyes closed, and one word ( _Helmsman_ ) on her lips, as her beautiful Tyrian blood poured from the wound in her throat.

Yellow tears mingling with his yellow blood, Ψiioniic begged the Signless, his brother, to preserve her body from those who would defile it and deny the proper funerary rites as a perverse show of power. 

The Sufferer treated his fallen enemy with the respect and dignity that she would never have granted him. He laid her out on the charnel sea-stones (Seadwellers normally died so rarely that more than one site was unnecessary) and personally stayed awake and sat a somber vigil at the waterside until the body had been entirely consumed by the predators who populated the water in which she had spent her wrigglerhood.

Fires were lit all over Alternia, and in each one was sprinkled a bit of herbs and minerals that made the rising smoke a rich Tyrian purple. The act of giving Her Imperial Condescension all of the proper funerary rites established the Sufferer’s mercy and set the minds of those who had not taken a side in the war at ease, that he was not like her.

In the opinions of the defeated, it was both an insult and a courtesy that the Sufferists were sworn not to harm the descendants of the highbloods. “Children can learn, they can be taught,” the Signless explained to his closest, his generals, his soldiers. “Suffer them to come to me, and the violence in their blood can be erased and replaced with pity for trollkind.” His more bloodthirsty followers scoffed, said that highbloods could not be trained, however young. Said that victory was making the Sufferer soft.

Which may have been the case, but when the Signless looked into the terrified faces of the highblood children, all too young to have even a trace of their blood in their eyes, he saw the wide, frightened eyes of his own descendant, his followers’ descendants, and he could not permit them to be harmed.

After the death of the Condesce, it made sense for the frightened and defeated surviving Seadwellers to seek the refuge of their wrigglerhood hives. The homes that for most of them now housed their descendants and the lusii who had been passed down along the bloodline since time immemorial became the only safe place left for them. After all, the lowbloods could not follow them underwater.

Orphaner Dualscar, proud to the last, made his stand on the shore of the little island where his shipwreck of a wrigglerhood hive stood.

The Marquise, the Summoner, and Miss Redglare “brought h1m sw1ftly 1nto custody,” but when they swept the hive for a descendant they found only recent traces of a smaller presence there. By the time that the Sufferer found out that they were torturing Dualscar for the location of his descendant, the pitiful General’s flesh was streaked more purple than gray. He was shackled to the brig of Mindfang’s ship, screaming from the heat of the same kind of burning manacles that had burned the Signless’ wrists.

The Signless could suffer the sight for no more than a brief, horrified moment, before he smashed a small keg of fresh water against the wall over the shackles, weakening the heat to a manageable level. Dualscar slumped against his bonds, panting heavily and shuddering faintly, but he glared up at the Signless with such a hateful, twisted expression that showed that he was beaten but far from broken.

“What the fuck do you want,” he snarled. The Sufferer lifted his hood off of his horns and pushed it back, settling it around his neck. “I’m not goin’ to fuckin’ tell you where they are.”

“Where who are?” The Sufferer asked gently, crouching to the ground in front of Dualscar.

“My descendant an’ the princess. That’s what you’ve had your fuckin’ lackeys down here torturin’ me for all this time – to find out where they are so you can—”

“So I can what?” the Sufferer asked. “So I can have them killed? So that I can dispatch them myself?” Dualscar averted his gaze. The gentleness in the Sufferer’s tone had shamed him into seeing how foolish his fear was. “I did not order you tortured,” the Sufferer explained gently. “I came here to stop it.” He reached out and gently touched the seadweller’s scarred face. The purple-ringed eyes flicked down to the blackened scars on his wrists.

“I don’t need your fuckin’ pity,” Dualscar spat finally, jerking his head away as much as he could. The Sufferer obligingly withdrew his hands.

“You sent your descendant to protect the Condesce’s, didn’t you?” The Sufferer’s voice was quiet and steady, but the dead empress’ name drew a flinch out of the prisoner. “You didn’t come out to the hive to hide, you came out here to buy them time.” Dualscar’s eyes shut tightly, and his jaw clenched. “You pitied her.”

The sob that wrung its way out of Dualscar’s chest was enough of an answer.

“That...that glubberin’ descendant a mine got a message to me sayin’ that...that the princess’ lusus, the fuckin’ Rift’s Carbuncle, had gone belly-up the same moment the Condesce died.” The Sufferer’s eyebrows shot up. “Feferi’s so sweet an’ gentle, she’d never hurt a soul. I wanted to protect her like I should a protected the Condesce.” Dualscar’s expression hardened again. “I will protect her. You aren’t gettin’ a word out a me about where they’re hid.”

“Our descendants are about the same age, aren’t they?” the Sufferer asked with a smile. “Mine is four sweeps – almost five, he’s started bragging about that. His name is Karkat. He hatched two sweeps after the start of the war.”

Dualscar grunted.

“A war is no time for grubs, I’m sure you’ll agree, but since I had no lusus to guard him I have raised him mostly myself,” the Signless said.

“Hmph. Bet he’s soft.” It was a desperate jab.

“Tough as nails,” the Sufferer replied, with a hint of pride. “Dualscar, if you don’t help me find your descendant and that of the Condesce, then they will be stuck in hiding for the rest of their lives.” He sighed. “I will be entirely frank with you. If you call them to the surface now, then I will take them with me back to the capitol. They will be educated and taken care of as if they were my own.” He paused, and let that option sink in.

“If you leave them where they are, then I’m afraid that I won’t be able to guarantee what would happen to them if they surfaced.” That drew eye contact out of the beaten general. The Sufferer held it patiently, knowing that he was being searched for any indication that he was lying.

“I die either way, don’t I?” Dualscar finally growled. The Signless only had to nod. “And if I don’t tell you where they are now, you won’t come lookin’ for them even if I tell you later?”

“I want to help them, but the only way that I can guarantee their safety is if they leave with us now.”

Purple tears started to slide quietly down Dualscar’s cheeks. The Sufferer afforded the condemned seadweller the dignity of not acknowledging them.

“Drop the gold dolphin paperweight off the stern a the ship,” he said, almost so softly that the Sufferer didn’t hear. “It’s the sign I said I’d give them when it was safe. They’ll surface on the starboard beach.” The Sufferer stood and raised his hood again. “Wait. Before you go.” He looked down and met Dualscar’s eyes again.

“Don’t let them see me like this. If you’re really so full a all that fuckin’ pity, tell them I’m already dead.” The Sufferer nodded, and left the cell. Neophyte Redglare stood in the shaft of light from the deck of the ship. She moved toward the cell, but was stopped by the Signless’ hand on her arm.

“Make it as quick and painless as you can,” he ordered. “I will send Mother to make the body presentable for exposure on the sea-stones.” She nodded, but he wasn’t finished yet. “And, if I _ever_ see you use those manacles again...” His grip tightened without him even realizing it, until she flinched away in fear, eyes behind her red glasses flicking down to the burns on the Sufferer’s wrists.

“I-I understand,” she said. He stared at her gravely. She was a recruit from the first three years of the war, and it was her inside information as a junior legislascerator that had made her valuable to the cause. She was younger than he had been at the start of the war, and he felt the gap acutely now between his 21 sweeps and her 14 when he looked at her.

“You don’t,” he replied, and released her arm. “But I forgive you.”

When the two wrigglers surfaced, Ψiioniic captured them in gentle red and blue bonds to keep them from fleeing. The boy, the purple-blood, Dualscar’s descendant, looked like he was maybe a little older than the Signless’ descendant, a full five sweeps instead of Karkat’s four and three-fourths. The girl, the Condesce’s descendant, looked like she had only just passed her fourth wriggling day. She cried Tyrian tears that broke the Signless’ heart when she realized that they had been betrayed.

“Eridan! Eridan!” she wailed, reaching out to the older boy, when the Signless scooped her into his arms and the Ψiioniic released her from his powers.

“Fef!” the boy cried. “Get your hands off a me, pissblood!” he snapped at the Ψiioniic, when the adult troll made to pick him up.

“Then walk on your own two feet,” was the reply, along with a sharp nudge that nearly knocked the boy down.

“Please, don’t separate us,” the girl, Dualscar had called her Feferi, pleaded, her little hands gripping at the Signless’ hood. “I don’t have anyfin left but Eridan, Sir, please, don’t krill him.”

“Fef, don’t w-worry!” the boy called, stammering a little. “I’ll be fin! W-we’ll both be just fin, Fef!”

“I won’t kill either one of you,” the Signless promised, which surprised Feferi so that her tears slowed. He smiled sadly at her. “Do you think my blood makes me such a monster that I would kill a child, when I have a descendant of my own?” She stared at him mutely, eyes narrowed suspiciously behind her goggles. His robe was soaked from carrying the dripping wet little seadweller, but he only cared about getting them back to his ship to see if the Dolorosa had returned from Mindfang’s ship yet.

“You have a descendant?” she asked finally. The Signless nodded.

“His name is Karkat,” he said. “He’s about your friend’s age.” She puffed out her cheeks, which made her fins wiggle, and somehow looked both sad and angry.

“Eridan’s not my frond,” she said. “He’s my moirail!”

“That’s right, landglubber!” Dualscar’s descendant chimed in. “So you’d better let us fuckin’ go—!”

“Watch your language,” the Ψiioniic scolded. Feferi leaned a little over the Signless’ shoulder and looked back at the adult troll who still held the small boy’s hands in psionic shackles.

“Why are you wearing those goggles?” she asked accusingly. “You’re the one who krilled the Condesce, aren’t you? Did you take those from her?”

“She made me the Helmthman of her ship. Thethe goggleth were implanted.” Feferi said nothing, but she sank down so that only her eyes, hair, and horns were peeking up over the Signless’ shoulder.

“You’re lucky she chose you at all, pissblood!” the little boy barked.

“Remember the pothition in which you now find yourthelf,” Ψiioniic drawled, and the boy cried out as the red and blue bonds dug into his wrists.

“Don’t hurt him!” Feferi cried.

“Sir!” called a voice from the air, and the Sufferer looked up to see the Summoner floating there, his orange wings flapping behind him with the effort that it took to hold him up.

“What is it?” he asked, and the Summoner took notice of the two seadweller children staring up at him in awe. If anything, he beat his wings more proudly, and soared up to cast a silhouette against one of the moons. The Sufferer heard Feferi gasp in his ear. “Yes, yes, you’re very impressive. Come down here and tell me what it is you’ve heard.” With a little bit of uncertainty, the impressively-horned troll landed almost daintily on the sand in front of them.

“Are you sure that you want the children to hear, sir?” he asked. The Sufferer looked at little Feferi, and then back to his general.

“Are you sure that the news can wait that long?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then let’s get them into Mother Dolorosa’s care.” As the Sufferer walked past the Summoner, he heard Dualscar’s impertinent little descendant mutter “Shitblood” toward the Summoner.

The puerile orange-blood must have heard as well, because he replied with “Shitstain,” with that rising inflection of his that always made it seem like he wasn’t quite done speaking.

“Why are your fuckin’ horns so big?”

“To counter-balance the weight of my bulge.”

“Summoner,” The Sufferer called warningly. The ships loomed before them – Mindfang’s ship, and the one that had brought the Sufferer, the Ψiioniic, and the Dolorosa. There was a rope ladder dangling from the side of the latter of the two. “A sling!” The Sufferer called up, and one of the crew looked over, an olive-blooded troll whose two horns jutted out over his forehead, almost meeting in the center. He disappeared again, and then threw down a cloth sling big enough to hoist up the seadwellers one by one.

“Who do you have here, my son?” called down the Dolorosa, where she appeared smiling next to the olive-blood. The Signless smiled up at her.

“A couple of new charges for you, Mother,” he called back. “Behave, now,” he murmured soothingly to Feferi, and settled her securely in the sling. He turned back to the boy, who glowered as his self-professed moirail (they were a little young to be filling quadrants, yet) was lifted up the side of the ship. The Signless watched as the Dolorosa scooped Feferi out of the sling and disappeared onto the deck with her. The sling dropped back down.

“No way, I’m not gettin’ in that fuckin’ thin’,” Eridan spat. No sooner had he said it, than he was being lifted by red and blue energy, and deposited in the sling. He sputtered and snarled all the way up the side of the ship, but he allowed himself to be hoisted over the side. As long as Feferi was cooperative, Eridan would follow her. It was a devotion that the Sufferer had seen before, and it made him certain that they had nothing truly to fear from the small seadweller boy.

“The brat’th lucky I didn’t have the energy to give him a toth all the way up there,” the Ψiioniic murmured. The Sufferer chuckled, and put his hand on the Ψiioniic’s shoulder.

“Go with them,” he ordered calmly. “They may need your assistance in restraining the children again.” His dear friend nodded and climbed the rope ladder. Charges deposited, the Signless turned finally to the Summoner. “What of the boy’s lusus?” he asked.

“A skyhorse. Being such a highblood, it took a bit of effort to commune with him,” the animal manipulator said. “But I’ve managed Pyralspite before, and all in all he was quite reasonable. I convinced him that his charge was old enough to leave of his own will. He is at the moment waiting within the hive for the next descendant. I heard that the girl’s was dead.”

“If she wasn’t then we all would be,” the Sufferer said. “Died in silence, thanks be, apparently when the Empress was executed.” The Summoner nodded. “Now what is this news that was so vital for you to tell me?”

“Oh! We just had communication from one of Mindfang’s fellow pirates that the GH is on the move, and headed toward his wrigglerhood hive.”

“To warn his descendant?” The Sufferer asked.

“With how old we’ve heard the boy is?” the Summoner mused. “Our guess is that he went there to recruit him.”


	2. Act One: Negative Peace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scene One: Know Your Enemy

When the Grand Highblood first visited Gamzee, Gamzee was barely five sweeps old with an absent lusus and a three-sweep-old sopor habit. His ancestor had stormed into the hive that he now had to stoop to enter, crashing around like he owned the place, and he had been genuinely surprised to find Gamzee there (with how dusty the hive had been ever since Gamzee could remember, he wasn’t really surprised).

The highblood had scooped Gamzee up in the air by one horn, holding him at eye level and taking in his entire appearance, from his greasepainted face to his black and gray polka-dotted pants, and he had snarled and looked like he was going to eat Gamzee until, capriciously, he started laughing. He had set Gamzee down and patted him between the horns and told him that maybe he could get used to having a descendant for once, even if he had no idea where the fuck he had come from.

That had changed when the Grand Highblood caught Gamzee baking up a sopor pie. He dumped the pie into the load gaper and marched Gamzee down to the beach without letting him stop to put on shoes or a shirt, leaving him shivering on the sand in the cold while he emptied out the entirety of Gamzee’s recuperacoon into the water.

Then he backhanded Gamzee across the face so hard that the five-sweep-old went sprawling into the sand, horns tingling while the Highblood screamed “WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU, YOU MOTHERFUCKING PIECE OF SHIT? YOU DON’T EAT MOTHERFUCKING SOPOR, IT ROTS HOLES IN YOUR MOTHERFUCKING THINKPAN!”

He made Gamzee sleep dry in the ablution trap until the tremors and the fever and the itch all over his skin had gone away and Gamzee was cold sober. But the nightmares hadn’t been as bad as Gamzee had feared, because the GH was always there when he woke up and sometimes, he even lifted Gamzee out of the ablution trap and held him until the nightmare was a dull memory.

The week that Gamzee first met his ancestor was the first time in his life that he could remember being pitied, and even with the painful detox it was one of the best weeks of his life.

Now Gamzee was almost seven sweeps old, and he had been clean ever since the GH made him that way. He couldn’t risk falling back into the habit, he never knew when the Grand Highblood would visit (sometimes once a perigee, sometimes less), and he was fairly sure that, mild amount of platonic pity or no, the adult troll would cull him if he caught him on the slime again.

He hadn’t seen his ancestor in three perigees.

Which wasn’t really all that surprising with all that talk about the motherfucking war, and how it was heating right the motherfuck up so much that the Condesce herself was coming down to join.

Which was a bad idea for her, if the funeral pyres about half a perigee ago had any say in it.

It was only the lack of indigo funeral pyres that made Gamzee not worry about the fate of his ancestor. Most trolls probably thought that there was nothing to the GH but fire and clubs and blood, but Gamzee had seen a side of the Highblood that no other trolls (or at least, very few) had seen. The GH had saved him from a lifetime of sopor abuse, and while it was probably something a lot of trolls would do for their descendant, the GH’s reason had never been about preserving the reputation of their sign. It was for Gamzee’s sake.

Most kids on Alternia never left their lawnrings. They got their news from their ancestors, if they had one, or from online acquaintances. Gamzee hadn’t gotten much news in about a perigee. Since his wrigglerhood when he first got on his husktop, he had been talking to this one motherfucker in particular. Never gave his name, but he was respectful to the extreme. Said he was hiding from the Sufferists, hadn’t ever met his ancestor because the E%ecutor had either been killed or gone into hiding at the start of the war. Then about a perigee ago, centaursTesticle had up and disappeared too, right into thin air. Leaving Gamzee all alone, no ancestor, no friend, no lusus, doing nothing but watching the sky and dreading to see indigo smoke.

Then one day the GH stormed into the hive sometime around dawn.

“Kid!” the Highblood bellowed, rattling the framework of the hive itself. “Hey! Chucklefuck!” Gamzee nearly tripped over himself crawling out of his recuperacoon, scraping most of the slime off of himself and jumping into his pants. There was still slime dripping from his hair, and he didn’t have time to slap his paint on. He ran out of his respiteblock and slipped at the top of the stairs, tumbling ass over horns down most of the way to the ground level.

When he opened his eyes, he was staring upside-down at his ancestor.

“Hey GH,” he greeted with a grin, turning around so that he could stand up. Five steps from the bottom of the stairs, he only came up to his ancestor’s chest. After a minute, the high subjuggulator’s painted face split in a huge toothy grin and he grabbed the near seven-sweep-old up by the underarms and picked him up like he was no bigger than three sweeps. Gamzee laughed, half-choking on a relieved honk, and threw his arms around his ancestor’s neck.

He knew something was wrong when he felt those reassuring arms tense and the GH’s long claws prick into his sides. He slowly loosened his grip, grin fading as he was set down on the ground. His ancestor took a seat on the stairs and scratched one hand through his gnarly mass of hair.

“I got a lot to get my apology on for, Chucklefuck,” he said.

“Man, the only shit I want a motherfucking apology for is why the hell you been away so long,” Gamzee replied. “And even then all you gotta say is you were putting some lowblood motherfuckers in their motherfucking place and I’ll totally understa—”

“We lost the war,” the GH said.

“I mean, a brother’s all gotta be getting up to busting some motherfucking heads when there’s heads that need some motherfucking busting and— What?”

“The highbloods motherfucking lost the war.” There was a tense silence between ancestor and descendant, and then Gamzee laughed nervously.

“Now come on, man, this ain’t funny,” he said. “What kinds of wicked motherfucking colors did you bring me this time?”

“I’m not fucking around, you little shit!” The Highblood stood. He was almost too tall for the ceiling, having to tilt his head a little so that his horns didn’t go straight through to the next floor. Gamzee stared up at him with bright eyes that had the faintest hint of indigo filling in around the pupils. “Those lowblood motherfucking Sufferists are gonna be here by dawn tomorrow. Then you can bet that they’re going to haul the both of us out there in the sunlight and cull us.” He sat down heavily on the stairs again, and they creaked under his weight. It was then that Gamzee noticed that his ancestor’s facepaint, which was usually pristine, if not jagged and smudged, was rubbed off in places.

He climbed up the stairs between his ancestor’s knees, and sat on one of the high subjuggulator’s legs.

“We’ll fight them,” he said. “We’ll cull all those motherfuckers first.”

“I will,” the GH corrected, and Gamzee was thankful for his sobriety because he could read his ancestor’s expression under the paint and saw the pain that lined his features. “I’ve been thinking about this all a good motherfucking while, and if that Signless motherfucker comes with them, I want you to go with them without a fight.”

“Leave you?” Gamzee asked. “Fuck no! GH, the fuck do you think I am? A coward?” He was cut off by the Highblood grabbing his shoulders and shaking him so hard that his head snapped back before he controlled it.

“I WANT YOU TO MOTHERFUCKING STAY ALIVE!” he snapped, and Gamzee whimpered a little as he felt fear crackle down his horns, even though it was a numbed, distant feeling. “That Signless motherfucker has put out the word that he’s gonna spare the descendants of the highbloods. That means you, Chucklefuck,” he said. “And if he’s with them tomorrow then I’m going to hold that motherfucker to his fucking word.”

“But I can’t just leave you to fight them alone. I mean, they’re all just a bunch of fucking worthless lowbloods, right? And you taught me to fight!” The GH made eye contact with his descendant, and then smiled sadly and squeezed his shoulder.

“I taught you fucking well, didn’t I?” he asked quietly.

“Yes sir,” Gamzee replied proudly.

“Didn’t think there was much to be done for you at first, but you know what Chucklefuck?”

“Aw man, GH, don’t do this, situation’s heavy enough without all up and having some kind of motherfucking pity party,” Gamzee whined.

“Let me motherfucking finish, asswipe,” the GH replied affectionately. “I’m proud of you, you pitiful little shit.” Despite himself, Gamzee couldn’t help but smile at his ancestor’s praise. “Whatever motherfucking happens tomorrow, don’t you even motherfucking think about forgetting that.” Gamzee swallowed hard.

“Yes, sir,” he said softly, and then scrubbed a little at his eyes. The GH chuckled, a sound that vibrated throughout the adult troll’s entire body and made Gamzee feel warm and proud. The Highblood wrapped an arm around Gamzee and pulled him to his chest, claw trailing through Gamzee’s slime-drenched hair. A soft purr wound out of Gamzee, and even though he knew that they were deep in the shit, he felt so motherfucking safe, like he did when the GH would hold him through the nightmares he got for not sleeping in sopor. He closed his eyes and rested his head against his ancestor’s chest, listening to the slow thuds of the Highblood’s blood-pusher.

“Go get some motherfucking sleep, Chucklefuck,” the GH rumbled finally. He looked down at his descendant when he didn’t get an answer, and saw that the kid had fallen asleep. He smiled. “You may be taller,” he muttered, “but you’re still that same motherfucking little shit.”

And then he carefully stood up, cradling his descendant one arm around his shoulders and the other under his knees, and carried him up the stairs to his respiteblock. Gamzee was groggily awake by the time he was carried into the block, and the GH found himself purring reassuringly as he helped his lanky descendant strip back down and climb into the recuperacoon. Just before Gamzee submerged his head, the Highblood ruffled his hair affectionately, and Gamzee blew bubbles at him in the sopor when he scratched his claws along Gamzee’s hornbed.

Then he dunked the kid’s head under, and turned and left the room.

He pulled his clubs out of his strife specibus, sitting on the couch and tossing them quietly to himself, as the dawn yielded to the impossibly bright day. Every so often he would catch his clubs and get up and move to the door, listening for the sound of approaching armies, but of course there was nothing.

That motherfucker the Signless and his fucking idealistic peace and pity hoofbeast-shit. No one even knew how the fuck he had survived. He had been strung up on the flogging jut. He had been whipped and beaten, and then the executioner had shot him.

But as soon as they had taken his body down, that lithe little Disciple of his had come in and snatched up his body and absconded. AND THE EXECUTOR, HEAD OF THE ARCHERADICATORS, DIDN’T HAVE THE SHAME GLOBES TO ORDER HIS TROOPS TO SHOOT HER. That motherfucker wasn’t head of the archeradicators anymore.

Three bilunar cycles later, the Sufferer reappeared like he rose from the motherfucking slab and declared war on the highbloods. And the moment that that fucking happened, the highbloods were fucking doomed. How the fuck were they supposed to fight against someone they had already tried to cull? He recruited more fucking followers every day, crazy lowbloods who had nothing better to do than die for some warrior savior who they all thought had risen from the dead. When he got the pirates on his side, even the seadwellers weren’t safe.

They should have made sure that that motherfucker was dead on the flogging jut. Bashed his head open like a ripe melon and let all of his crazy mutant blood spill on the ground and see whether he could manage any miracles out of that.

With all the Circus folk likely executed (trolls the Grand Highblood had performed with, back in his zealous youth), even if they spared Gamzee, he wouldn’t be allowed to practice. If they were cunning enough about it, they could probably convert him to the Sufferists.

That was a hard thought for the devout Cultist to swallow. But if that was what it took to keep the kid breathing...

It was a good motherfucking thing that the Highblood wouldn’t live to see it.


	3. Chapter 3

Gamzee had long ago given up on waiting down at the coast for the old goat. Sure, it was a fine way to repay a lusus who had never done wrong by him before, but the way he figured it the old goat had never done much right by him before either. The GH had raised him better than his lusus had.

When he awoke screaming just before dusk, sopor slime flooding into his mouth before he realized what he was doing, he knew by the hot ache all over his body, seeping into his bones, that the slime wasn’t even trying to ease, that his lusus was dead.

The GH came storming into his respiteblock seconds after he pushed his head through the top of the slime, spitting sopor out of his mouth and pinching it out of his nose. At first, the ancient troll didn’t even seem to notice that his descendant was awake, storming over to the window and looking out before making sure the curtains were closed. Then he turned, and jumped a little when he saw Gamzee staring back at him.

“Don’t look out there,” he said, but Gamzee was already getting out of the Recuperacoon and scraping the slime off of his body. “Get back in the ‘coon,” the GH growled, and sounded like he meant business. But Gamzee just stopped and looked at him, because everything hurt like something had been ripped away from him – no, _out_ of him – and now his ancestor was going to treat him like a wriggler.

“The old goat’s dead, isn’t he,” Gamzee said softly. The GH looked startled. One of the things that they had initially bonded over – one of the main reasons why the GH even gave the tiniest of flying fucks about his descendant – was that they shared the same absent lusus. It was a touchy subject for both of them.

“Yeah,” the GH said after a long moment. “He is.” Gamzee choked a little on his inhale. He calmly (even though his hands were shaking) pulled up his pants and padded over to the window. The GH held the curtains shut and stared down at him. Gamzee looked up at him, but couldn’t read the expression on his face.

“Let me see,” he said. They stood there for a moment, and then the GH sighed and let his hand fall from the curtain. Gamzee parted them warily and peered out.

His lusus was washed up on the beach that was visible from his window. The sand around him was completely saturated with dark indigo that felt like it was leeching from Gamzee’s veins to look at. The old seagoat had blood caked in the white fur of his snout, running from one eye. The brown and black and white-striped lance sticking out of his lusus’ eye turned Gamzee’s stomach. A ringing started in his ears that sounded suspiciously like hysterical laughter, and his fingers gripped the windowsill until they were ashen.

Then an enormous hand landed solidly on his shoulder and startled him away from the sight.

“Get your ‘voodoos under control, Chucklefuck,” the GH said, and while it sounded like he had a note of ‘I told you so’ to his tone, he mostly just sounded concerned. The undercurrent of distress that couldn’t possibly be caused by Gamzee’s chucklevoodoos made Gamzee’s blood-pusher wrench suddenly when he realized that his ancestor had felt the old goat’s death too.

Gamzee swallowed hard and nodded, taking a deep breath and feeling more than hearing the ringing laughter subside from his ears.

“We have to go down there,” Gamzee said.

“We’re not going anywhere,” his ancestor replied. “The fuck do you need to go down there for?”

“The old goat came back so that he could say goodbye.” Gamzee scrubbed away the tears that betrayed him. Sure, his lusus had never really been around, but...it was different, seeing him dead.

“Then wave from the motherfucking window,” the GH snarled. “The old goat ain’t there no more, kid,” he added after a moment, softly, hesitantly. Sadly? Gamzee looked at the large hand still gripping his shoulder. Finally, the adult troll shut the curtains on the window again with one hand, and dragged Gamzee further toward the center of the room.

“The old goat did one last good thing by us, Chucklefuck,” he said, sitting cross-legged on the floor. Gamzee sat with him, resisting the urge to crawl into his lap. The two Capricorns stared at one another. Gamzee hated himself for how hard he was trembling. Finally, the GH reached over and slid his hands under Gamzee’s armpits, dragging him over to sit in his lap like Gamzee was still a five-sweep child and not a nearly seven-sweep adolescent.

“What was you saying about the old goat?” he asked.

“He gave us a warning,” the GH replied. “We’ve got an idea of who’s coming. See, that lance belongs to a shitblooded motherfucker calls himself the Summoner. Good news is he’s all over the Signless motherfucker’s teachings, meaning even if the Signless isn’t there with them he’ll make sure the Signless’ credo about the descendants of the highbloods gets followed.” Gamzee opened his mouth to protest, but the GH cut him off. “So long as you go _without a motherfucking fight_ ,” he growled.

“I got a personal beef with that winged motherfucker, and I’m willing to motherfucking bet that if you charge out there into the fray he’d be more than happy to use lethal force to subdue you. You listening, Chucklefuck?”

“I’m listening, GH,” Gamzee mumbled.

“Plus, if he’s on the job, then you can be sure as shit that his pretty little pirate princess will be coming with him, and that bitch is _ruthless_.”

“Shit, coming from you?”

“Yeah, coming from motherfucking me.” The GH sighed and looked down at Gamzee. Gamzee looked up into the indigo irises of his ancestor.

“They’re gonna kill you, aren’t they?” he asked softly. The GH’s eyebrows arched up, but then a soft smile curved his lips and he ruffled Gamzee’s hair and then grabbed him and held him close. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t need to, either. Gamzee hid his face in the stripes of his ancestor’s uniform, tensing his shoulders against the tears that threatened to fall.

“Man, why won’t you let me motherfucking fight with you?” he murmured, muffled by the fabric and the comforting, cool presence of his ancestor. “If I lose you, I ain’t gonna have nothing left, GH. I might as well die with you.”

“Shit, Chucklefuck, you’re almost full-grown,” the GH replied, and it made it all the harder to listen when Gamzee realized that his ancestor’s voice was gruffer than usual because _he was all choked up too_. “I’ve seen so many motherfucking sweeps come and go that I can’t even remember what cycle it is. I’ve all up and lived my motherfucking life, kid. You haven’t. Call me a selfish motherfucker, but that’s what I want to see.” He grabbed Gamzee’s chin and forced his descendant to meet his eyes again. “I want you to promise me,” he said. “You’ll do what it takes to stay alive, but you won’t let those motherfuckers break you. You promise me that, Chucklefuck?”

Gamzee sniffled pathetically.

“Promise me right motherfucking now,” the GH said, voice dropping dangerously.

“I promise, sir,” Gamzee said softly, reluctantly. The GH smiled and ruffled his hair again.

“Get your motherfucking paint on and get dressed, kid. It’s been a while since I was in the troupe, but I think I got enough miracles left in me for one last wicked motherfucking carnival.” Gamzee smiled softly and scrambled out of his ancestor’s lap, stealing furtive glances of his ancestor before he went into the bathroom to do as his ancestor said.

If he had anything to motherfucking say about it, it would be the last order he took from his ancestor that night.


	4. Chapter 4

The smell of smoke was hardly noticeable until it started clouding up the whole room. The GH whirled back from the window, eyes darting around. Gamzee looked up from his miracle modus, startled, and only had a second to hide it again before his ancestor ran out of the room, his footsteps shaking the floor under Gamzee. Gamzee, of course, jumped to his feet and followed, drawing his clubs from his strife specibus as quietly as he could. The smoke got thinner as Gamzee crept down the stairs behind his ancestor, but there was a strange orange glow coming from the wall. Gamzee stopped for a minute to stare at it, and then he heard the door to his hive slam.

“Motherfuck!” he swore, jogging down the stairs and to the door. The air was clearer down on the ground floor, but Gamzee still creaked the door open slowly, aiming to not be seen by his ancestor. His blood-pusher was pounding as he watched his ancestor spin those giant, spiked clubs one in each hand. Gamzee leaned his head out of the door and strained his ears, but he still couldn’t hear what was being said above the distant rumble of his ancestor’s voice. 

On the beach there was an enormous ship, and a whole mess of trolls fanned out on the sand. The highest-blooded one was a cerulean, and she was probably the captain, but Gamzee’s attention was immediately drawn to the brown-blood flying next to her. His wings were huge – at least as wide across as he was tall – and the same shit brown of his symbol. He had wicked mutant red in his hair and on the tufts of fur on his pants, and there was no way, no motherfucking way that that wasn’t the very same motherfucker who’d killed his lusus.

Gamzee coughed, and finally looked up, noticing a warm orange glow sinking into his skin. He jumped when he saw fire licking at the skin of his hive, and bolted fully outside.

“Hey! You there!” someone called, and he whirled around. Two huge trolls, olive-bloods with big, nasty-looking horns and the gauntlets of Ruffiannihilators, charged at him around the corner of the hive. His clubs were already in his hands, and he grinned and spun them, feeling the warmth of his chucklevoodoos squirm and wriggle up and out of the tips of his horns like a laugh bubbling up from deep in his gut.

“Lookie lookie,” he purred. “A couple of Sufferist _pukebloods_ think they can take out a future subjuggulator?” One of them faltered under the chucklevoodoos, but the other pulled out some sort of weapon that looked like a bunch of stones on a rope. 

“You’re not a future subjuggulator,” the troll replied. “You’re just some gangly little paint-faced kid. You’re not even big enough to lift your ancestor’s clubs.”

The smile on Gamzee’s lips turned down into a snarl. He didn’t notice his ancestor turning to look at him.

“I’LL MAKE THAT MOTHERFUCKER PROUD OF ME!” he screamed, lunging at the olive-blood. His club came down, but the Ruffiannihilator dodged it and caught Gamzee’s wrist in the rope of the weapon. Gamzee twisted so that he could swing his second club, his entire body jolting in pain when he felt something in his wrist twist and break. The second club made contact, split the motherfucker’s lip and spilled olive blood down his smug chin. But Gamzee was off-balance, and his arms were both twisted across his front, and he went down to his knees with a painful pull in his shoulder.

He looked up at his captor just in time to catch the fist coming down toward his face. He felt the dull ache of the knuckles to his cheekbone, and the sharp searing pain of the metal gauntlet cutting into his face. He went sprawling on the familiar grass, coughing.

His new Jokerkind specibus spun like miracles as soon as he dropped his other club to cradle his cheek, but then he was being lifted off of the ground, and he gripped desperately at the gray fingers clutched around his throat, seeing colors that weren’t at all to do with his miracle modus. He snorted and spat at the peasant soldier holding him captive. For his cheek, he was thrown roughly to the ground, and went skidding a few feet. This gave him the opportunity to get back up on his feet, though, and his Jokerkind spun and landed on something he’d never seen before.

Clawed gauntlets appeared on his hands as he jumped back up to his feet, baring his teeth. He could feel a slow trickle of blood down his cheek, and now the other olive-blood had shaken off the chucklevoodoos and withdrawn what looked like a large sledgehammer. He danced out of the way of the first swing of the hammer and lunged forward, scraping the claws across the olive-blood’s side. His wrist wrenched and he couldn’t shake off the pain. He collapsed to his knees, clutching his wrist with the other hand.

The sledgehammer raised up over the olive-blood’s head, and Gamzee was pretty sure he was about to find out what it was like to die.

“GAMZEE!” It was raw, primal, more full of fear than fear-monger, and it ripped its way out of the GH’s throat so suddenly that Gamzee jumped. His ancestor had screamed his name. Not Chucklefuck, not kid, not motherfucker, but _Gamzee_.

The minute he turned to look at his ancestor, he was knocked to the ground and pinned.

For a split second, even though half of the lawnring stood between them, he could have sworn that he met his ancestor’s eyes, and something black and dangerous bubbled up inside him when he noticed that they were wide and scared.

The GH’s club fell numbly from his fingers in surrender.

“NO!” Gamzee cried, thrashing against the hold of the trolls who had him pinned. The GH turned away from him and back to the orange-blood and the cerulean-blood who were obviously in charge.

“Alright, motherfucker,” the GH snarled. Gamzee couldn’t tell which one he was addressing. “I’ll do whatever you want. Let the kid go.”

“Why do you care so much?” the pirate lady asked, spitting out the word “care” like it was some kind of disease. “He’s old enough to cull. You’ve smashed in the heads of hundreds of kids his age and maybe some younger.” Gamzee saw the GH’s shoulders hitch as he flinched.

“It’s different when it’s your own motherfucking descendant,” he said. She cackled, high and shrill but, Gamzee noticed, still avoided getting too close to the GH even though he was unarmed. “Just promise me you’ll spare him.” He turned and pinned his gaze on the Summoner, while the broad circled him. “You swear on that motherfucker you follow – on the motherfucking Sufferer himself – that you’ll look out for him.” Gamzee squeezed his eyes shut and looked away. The tremor in his ancestor’s voice was too much. The silence dragged on for longer than was necessary. Gamzee cracked open one eye and saw that the Summoner had landed, and was fluttering his wings in uncertainty.

“Surrender without a fight, and we won’t harm your descendant,” the shitblood agreed finally.

“No, GH, don’t worry about me!” Gamzee pleaded. “Come on, just pick up your club and stop these motherfuckers!”

But the GH just turned to look at him, and it looked like he was in physical pain.

“Sorry kid, no can do,” he murmured. Gamzee let go of a sob that did nothing to take the aching pressure off of his chest.

“YOU PROMISED ME A CARNIVAL!” Gamzee screamed, cold indigo tears streaming down his cheeks, running off of his facepaint. “YOU LYING MOTHERFUCKER! FIGHT BACK! FIGHT THEM! I’D RATHER DIE THAN WATCH THEM KILL YOU!”

“SAME FOR ME, CHUCKLEFUCK!” the GH yelled, and Gamzee went mute at the vibration down his horns. He was panting a little with the weight of two solid trolls holding him down on the ground. He thrashed impotently in their hold.

“Fire!” someone yelled, but Gamzee didn’t hear the twang of the arrow being loosed from its bow. He saw the jagged arrow sink deep into the GH’s shoulder, felt the tingle in his horns as his ancestor howled in pain, saw him stagger as the rope tied onto the arrow was jerked. Another arrow sunk into the GH’s other shoulder, and he fell to one knee as the two ropes were yanked and pulled. Indigo blood ran down the striped material of his uniform, and he panted in pain. Arrows came flying without ropes, then, none of them as jagged and deadly as the first two, sticking in the GH’s shoulders and back and legs. One pierced his heel and pinned him to the ground, and he arched his back and _screamed_.

The sound blended with the rawness in Gamzee’s throat and the buzzing in his ears and horns.

Then trolls were throwing ropes to each other, and the GH – twice as tall as any of those motherfuckers – was brought to his knees and bound, hands and legs. His blood dripped down his body and his breath was ragged, and he met his descendant’s eyes with a look of pity. Gamzee stopped struggling for a moment.

“GH!” he screamed, and thrashed again, more wildly. 

“Let him go!” came the order from the pirate lady. “The boy is harmless.” Suddenly, Gamzee was free, and he staggered to his feet and sprinted to his ancestor. He froze a few feet away. Up close, he could see the transparent indigo stains on the GH’s facepaint, and he knew his ancestor could see the same on his own.

“Come here,” his ancestor murmured, and his voice was quiet but ragged. Gamzee swallowed the bile that threatened to rise up in his throat and nodded, coming closer and curling up under the curve of his ancestor’s chest, listening for the watery thuds of the GH’s racing blood-pusher. He clenched his eyes shut and hid his face in the bloody fabric of the GH’s uniform. The GH laughed raggedly, and started to hum, a low rumble in his chest. The sound was so surprising to Gamzee and the song so familiar that his tears dried up and he looked with wide eyes to his ancestor, who was looking down at him. They were both in shadow from the curtain of the GH’s hair.

“Flesh of my flesh, and sign of my sign,” the GH sang quietly, the old song he’d used to soothe Gamzee back when he was coming off the slime. It was a song that was even older than the GH. “The nightmares that plague you, they used to be mine.” He paused to draw a ragged breath. Gamzee’s mouth opened and closed frantically when he saw the hem of the pirate lady’s skirt move close and heard her boots shuffling over the grass. The way that the GH smiled when he heard the slow, metallic drag of a saber being unsheathed told Gamzee that he knew she was there without being told. “But know starting now, there’s nothing to fear,” he continued. Gamzee just sobbed quietly and clenched his eyes shut. He couldn’t look. Couldn’t watch. Couldn’t know when it was going to happen.

“For nothing can hurt you, as long as I’m—”

 _Thump_.

Gamzee jerked and clung tighter to his ancestor’s uniform, opened his eyes slowly and saw his ancestor’s head a mass of black hair lying severed a few feet away.

Gamzee screamed, and screamed, and screamed, but it felt like his chest was tightening from all of the sounds that wanted to come out. He scrambled out from under his ancestor’s headless corpse before his blood-pusher had fully stopped, looked down at all the indigo all over his hands and arms and clothes. He heard his own blood rushing in his ears, and was vaguely aware that he was sobbing as he fell to his knees next to his ancestor’s head.

“No,” he sobbed. “Oh god, oh messiahs, oh _fuck_ , GH, no!” He buried his hands in the tangled mass of his ancestor’s bloody hair, but all the noise died in his throat when he turned the GH’s face up to meet his.

His indigo eyes were still _lucid_. Gamzee’s eyes went wide, and he would have screamed and thrown the head away from him in horror, but a bizarre fascination kept it in his shaking hands.

“GH?” he called shakily. His ancestor’s gaze softened into a grieved, pained look, and his lips twitched like he was trying to speak. “Oh god, oh god,” Gamzee babbled. “GH I’m so sorry, I’m so motherfucking sorry, please,” he sobbed. The GH’s eyelids drooped, and he seemed to give up speaking, because his lips just froze into a soft, sad smile, suspended in the smeared, jagged grin of his facepaint. And then his eyes rolled back until only orange was visible, and the twitching stopped. Gamzee choked on his inhale.

“No,” he wheezed. “Fuck, GH, no...!” he clutched his ancestor’s head to his chest, burying his face in the thick hair between the GH’s horns, curling around it with a wretched, lost sound.

He froze when he felt something cool and wet dripping down the back of his neck, and the sharp kiss of cold steel.

“Poor little dear,” cooed the venom-laced voice of the pirate queen. “Should I put you out of your misery, too?”


	5. Chapter 5

“Spinneret,” the Summoner said sharply, stepping forward. She turned and looked at him over her shoulder, not moving her sword from the skinny neck of the gangly young descendant. 

“Yeeeeeeees, dearest?” she asked, voice the sugary-sweet picture of innocence. He gave her a look that plainly said that he wasn’t buying it, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I made a promise to the boy’s ancestor,” he said calmly.

“Yeah? I didn’t.”

“ _Mindfang_!” she looked at him sincerely then, with her blue eyes that burned hotter than any flame, and he met her gaze. She pulled a face of resigned consternation and backed off with a dramatic sigh. She didn’t sheathe her sword, because it still dripped with the Highblood’s, well, blood, but she withdrew it from the boy’s scrawny neck. Her hips swayed a little as she approached him, and put a hand on his chest right between the horns of his sign. Her touch was so cool it burned.

“The mutant’s teachings made you soft, my love,” she murmured with a slow-curling grin. He put his hand over hers, his thicker fingers curling around her deceptively delicate ones.

“The Sufferer’s teachings gave me faith,” he replied quietly, and raised her hand lovingly to his lips. He didn’t resist when she slipped it out of his grasp. “Bind the boy!” he called to the crew, who nodded and moved to obey.

“And take him to the brig!” Spinneret added hastily, not to be seen letting her matesprit order around her own crew. “Don’t be gentle,” she said, staring with distaste and a little bit of fear at the child curled up on the ground cradling his ancestor’s severed head.

The Summoner watched as two sailors seized the boy under his arms, prying him free from his ancestor. How Spinneret remained unmoved by the display, he didn’t know, as the boy thrashed and let out a _wail_ that was more beastly than human. The Grand Highblood’s head fell wetly to the ground. The boy’s clothes were soaked with indigo stains, and it was spattered on his face and covering his arms as well.

“You killed him! You motherfuckers!” the Highblood’s descendant cried, voice pitching up into a high, desperate wail as his hands were forced behind his back and metal shackles clamped onto his wrists. The laugh he let out as the shackles tightened made a shudder run down the Summoner’s spine. “You better watch your backs. WATCH YOUR MOTHERFUCKING BACKS, MOTHERFUCKERS!” he screamed, thrashing as much as he could with his arms bound. “I’ll motherfucking kill you all for what you motherfucking did to him! You hear me? You’re all gonna motherfucking die at my hand!”

“Ugh,” Spinneret groaned, rubbing her temple. “Someone do something to keep that boy’s mouth shut. His screaming’s loud enough to wake the dead.” She looked up with a little spark of humor. “Ha!” she said, with a grin. The Summoner fixed her with a tired look that said that he wasn’t amused. She rolled her eyes at him. She removed the cerulean sash from around her waist and moved over to the screaming indigo-blooded boy, shoving it in his mouth without preamble and tying it tightly around his head. She grabbed his chin in her hand and stared into his eyes. “Well look at that,” she said. “Sweetheart, he’s starting to get a little bit of his color in,” she called to the Summoner.

“Spinneret, I gave my _word_ ,” he replied. “Take the boy onto the ship,” he told the sailors who each held one of the young indigo-blood’s arms. Spinneret scoffed and released his face. As he was dragged past the Summoner, the look on his face was one of the purest, murderous hatred. Those barely-indigo eyes haunted him even after the boy had been pressed on board and taken belowdecks.

“Are you alright?” Spinneret asked tenderly, when he stood there for a moment just staring at the still bound body of the Highblood. The troll could honestly have won the day, if he had fought. There was a chance, with his size and his strength and his skill with those clubs, that he could have beaten them all and escaped. But instead, he gave it all up. He surrendered, to ensure the survival of his descendant.

The Summoner would have done the same for Tavros in a heartbeat.

“Where’s the nearest charnel slab?”

\-- ampleTauricornus  [AT] began trolling cerebralGenuflection [CG]\--

AT: We captured the Highblood’s descendant, And executed the Highblood,

AT: We will be sending some troops to lay out the Highblood on the charnel slab,

AT: I will go with them, So that I can make sure he is treated with respect,

AT: Spinneret will bring you the boy,

AT: She will tell you what she recommends, When she does,

[“You know that by sparing the boy, you’ve condemned me,” came a quiet, sad voice from the door. The Summoner, a little surprised that this wasn’t just another explosion of Spinneret’s famed dramatics, said nothing while he prepared to give her his full attention.]

AT: Hold that thought, I’ll be back,

\-- ampleTauricornus  [AT] ceased trolling cerebralGenuflection [CG]\--

“What, my love?” he asked, turning in his chair to face her.

“I executed his ancestor right in front of him. You have to be stupid to think that he’s not going to make me a priority for his revenge.” Her words were biting, but her body language was a little frightened, curled in on herself. She looked so much smaller without that ridiculously showy hat she insisted on wearing. He got up and moved over to her, gently pulling her into his arms. Her blood gave her a kind of lukewarm touch to her skin, whereas he was veritably a furnace in comparison. She sighed softly and laid her head on his chest, her horns fitting neatly on either side of his chin. “Why _did_ you spare him?”

“I promised his ancestor,” the Summoner replied.

“That’s not an appropriate answer,” she said, glaring up at him. He smiled sadly and brushed a curl of her hair away from her face.

“What if our positions had been reversed?” he asked. “What if it had been you or I being hunted? What if it had been Tavros, or Vriska, who was in danger?”

“ _Vriska_ is a tough little chip off the nub—”

“I’m sure the Highblood thought the same thing about his descendant.” It was like water had been poured over the smoldering fuse of Spinneret’s anger. They stood there in silence for a few minutes, and then her hands tightened in the fabric of his shirt.

“The boy would still sooner kill me than look at me,” she said.

“He’s just a boy, Spinneret.” She said nothing for a long moment.

“Boys can be dangerous, too.” He would have pulled back to look at her after that, but her arms tightened around him, and he felt her tense a little. So instead, he just smiled sadly and said nothing. When she would let him, he tipped her chin up and brought his lips down to meet hers.

“I’ll protect you,” he promised her quietly, whispered tenderly against her lips, and it was like something in her snapped. She threw herself on him in a kiss so fiery that he nearly fell over. His response was surprised, but half-hearted. His matesprit pulled back to look at him with a confused sort of betrayal.

“I just...” he said softly, rubbing at the back of his neck and wincing. “Not tonight.” He sat down heavily on the bed. She perched lightly beside him, slipping her arms around him comfortingly.

“He used to be your kismesis, didn’t he?” The Summoner buried his head in his hands and nodded. He felt his matesprit’s comforting touch shift to one of his enormous horns, which were so large that the intimate touch was dulled to simply be soothing.

“Before he flipped from black, to blacker than black, and tried to rip me to shreds,” he murmured. He felt her hands move down to his neck, and her soft fingertips start kneading into the tense muscles. 

“What are you going to do with the boy?” she asked.

“Whatever the Sufferer decides is to be done with him,” the Summoner replied. “I trust in his mercy.”

Spinneret gently pushed him back, and curled up under his arm, her head on his chest. She traced her sign on his chest, in the circle of his own.

“Sometimes, I feel like I should be jealous of how faithfully you follow the mutantblood,” she mused, but he could tell without exerting the effort to lift his head that she was smiling. “Will you trust me? For tonight?” He smiled.

“I think, you’re too pitiful to trust,” he said fondly, stroking her long, dark hair with one hand. She laughed lightly against his chest.

“You always know just how to flatter a girl.”

\--cerebralGenuflection [CG] has begun trolling ampleTauricornus [AT]\--

CG: very good, summoner.

CG: alas, i won’t be able to welcome mindfang or the boy personally, as i will be away for nearly a perigee.

CG: but i’ll make certain that there is someone there, anyway.

cerebralGenuflection [CG] has ceased trolling ampleTauricornus [AT]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More notes on the Ancestors' trollhandles and quirks can be found [here](http://resplendentri.tumblr.com/post/16524439230/quick-ancestor-quirks)!


End file.
